Running a demo

Posted by Posted by Sir Kyrian and Magpie on the Belegarth Board

This weekend, Rhun ran a demo at a free gaming/anime/LARP/video game convention called Geek Kon in Madison on the campus of the University of Wisconsin. It went very well, yielding about ninety people who had signed waivers over the course of the weekend. Here are some of the things we learned from the experience:

Paperwork. Make sure you have informational handouts of some kind. We had quarter-sheet fliers as well as full color brochures. Another useful handout would be business cards. If you have enough volunteers, give them some handouts and have them walk around the convention.
Waivers. Make sure you have blank ones available (we had 100) and have everyone sign one prior to playing. If you plan on allowing children under the age of 16 trying it out, it’s safest to require a parent or guardian to stay near the field and to have the kids on a separate field from the older children and adults. Make sure the parent or guardian sees exactly what is going on. I give props to Beornve for their demo at the Highland Games running a separate field for the kids.
Location. We got lucky with our location. It was a sunken courtyard where people could watch from two higher levels. It had a real "gladiator pit" vibe to it. That visibility really helped to get people to try Belegarth out. Just like a practice field, you want an area that’s going to get a lot of foot traffic.
Event staff and media. Establish a good rapport with your event staff and get knowledgeable, positive people to talk should the media inquire about Belegarth. Be willing to make any accommodations requested by the event staff such as noise level, where you can fight, etc. If you’re in an open area, see if there’s a contingency area you can move to if it starts raining. Make sure you confirm if there are any limitations or restrictions for the convention or fighting area such as no arrows, etc.
Volunteers. Get as many as you can. One person cannot do this alone. Volunteers should wear nice garb. Six to eight people minimum should be enough to cover the different areas depending on how big your fighting field is. Make sure you know where the closest water source and bathrooms are. If possible, rotate the volunteers out and give them a chance to check out the convention. Also, make sure people get a chance to get food or bring food for them. If you know in advance that you’re only going to have a few volunteers, make sure you plan for a way to feed them at some point during the day because they’re probably not going to have a chance to go out for food. Make sure that any trash gets cleaned up and thrown away as soon as possible.
Equipment. Coordinate with the event staff to make sure you have tables and chairs for your volunteers. The primary use for a table would most likely be for people to sign their waivers but if you have a separate sign-in table, then you can use other tables for laying out informational materials, examples of weapons, armor, garb, and other types of arts and sciences displays. If you can, see if you can secure a cart to haul things from the drop-off point to your demo location. Check with the event staff to see if they have any rope or caution tape you can use to cordon off the fighting area. Just in case, you might want to bring your own.
Have a sign or banner with Belegarth on it. We had a Belegarth sign at the stairs that led straight to the courtyard. This made it easier for people to find us.
Volunteers’ equipment. Have a place where people can put their personal equipment that’s not easily visible/accessible to the new participants. We had people’s stuff right next to the waiver table and people who wanted to try immediately made a beeline for that equipment.
Have loaner equipment. For this we brought about eight swords and five shields. We underestimated how much stuff we would need. It’s much better to have too much than not enough. Limit the loaner gear to shields and single swords or clubs. More on that later…
Flow of people. The basic flow went like this: A person expressed interest in trying it out. We directed him/her over to the table to sign a waiver. Once the person signed the waiver and we looked it over, one of our volunteers took the person or group of people aside and explained the basics of the rule system. After that, we had the people either spar against each other while one of us supervised or had them spar against us if we had sufficient volunteers. After they had a chance to warm up and get an idea of how the game was played, we had them going in a melee of some type.
The rules. We used a very simplified rules set for the demo. This made it easier to explain and easier for them to learn. The point of the demo is to get people excited about Belegarth and to get them to come to a practice, not to bore them with all of the rules. They can pick those up later on. Here was how I explained it:
- When you hear “Hold!”, immediately stop what you’re doing and don’t talk.
- When you die, hold your weapon on the top of your head and move off the battlefield.
- No head shots. Keep your swings below the shoulders.
- Any hit to the torso is death. Define the torso area.
- If you get hit in the arm, put the arm behind your back. If you get hit in that arm again, you’re dead since it’s as if the arm is no longer there. Shots to the hands don’t count.
- Because we were fighting on a stone/concrete surface, we modified the leg rules a bit. If you get hit in the leg, drag that leg behind you. A hit to that leg again was death.
- If you get hit in both legs, both arms, or an arm and a leg, then you’re dead.
- We don’t count cuts or slices. The weapon has to actually hit your opponent.
Weapon limitations. We only allowed people to fight either with single blue or with sword and shield. We did not allow them to fight with reds, Florentine, archery, or flails. In my opinion, this was probably one of the best things we could have done as I think I could count the number of headshots on two hands over the course of the weekend.
Once or twice each day put a temporary stop on all training and recruiting to have a full out battle with only experienced volunteers. Do this because it is awesome fun, but also because it will attract a huge crowd and many new recruits immediately afterwards.
What they say. Over the course of the demo, we heard quite a few people say that they’ve taken fencing, kendo, or some type of martial art. Emphasize that this is different and you shouldn’t go into it necessarily with preconceived notions. With the exception of the SCA or Amtgard who have very similar rules sets, it’s going to take a while for them to catch on and realize that it is different. Depending on what type of convention or event you’re at, you’re going to have a lot of people asking for big two-handed weapons. We did. Under no circumstances should you let them use them.
Central weapon pick-up/drop off. Have a designated point where people can pick up or return weapons after they’re done fighting.
Marshalling. Keep an eye out for people who are swinging for the rafters and/or swinging high. Immediately let them know to keep their shots low. If they keep doing it, pull them aside and show them what they’re doing wrong. If they keep doing it, you may have to have them either sit out for a while or leave. If the participant has fought in the SCA before, put special emphasis on our no headshot rule. It can be very easy to slip into muscle memory and immediately go for headshots. Just ask Soth about what happened at GenCon two years ago…
Participants’ gear. There needs to be an area where people can drop their backpacks, cell phones, keys, cameras, etc. It needs to be secure and off to the side where one of the volunteers can keep an eye out. This is to prevent someone walking by and swiping people’s stuff. Remind the participants that they should check out their pockets and remove any sharp, electronic, or fragile objects.
Crowd control. There should be an area for spectators that is cordoned off from the fighting area. If there’s too much foot traffic and no possibility of a barricade, have one volunteer do crowd control and answer any questions people on the sidelines might have. The person doing crowd control needs to be one of your more senior members who’s able to answer questions in a clear and friendly manner.
Contingencies. Have a way to immediately call 911 should it arise. Know the location of the closest hospital.

If the demo feels like it’s getting off-track or a bit too chaotic to control, stop all activities and basically reset. Return all the weapons to the central location, move the participants off the field, give the volunteers a chance to take a short break, and perhaps do a few battles with only Belegarth members participating. After that, you can resume normal operations.

From time to time, true boredom may manifest itself at the demo. Early Sunday morning there was about a two hour span of time where there was nothing going on anywhere at the convention. Event staff members were walking around trying to find something to do. Luckily, we had a rousing game of Apples to Apples to keep all of our volunteers in our designated location. When things picked up at about 11:00, our volunteers were ready to go and we didn’t have to track them down. Bring a game or deck of cards to keep people occupied and at the demo location. If you do allow people to leave, make sure you can get them back quickly if things should pick up.

I can’t emphasize this enough. Always plan for rain if you’re going to be outside and make sure you coordinate with the event staff regarding an alternate location.